


Крещение (Christening)

by KayOsmondsFireweedFoundation



Category: Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson
Genre: 1905, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Human, Gen, Names, Prequel, Russian characters, and a little finnish, finnish character, he's also a polyglot, hodgkins and muddler are immigrants, moominpappa is just out here having a good time, pre-WW1 AU, some russian, the adventures of moominpappa, the oshun oxtra crew, which is useful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:08:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22076707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KayOsmondsFireweedFoundation/pseuds/KayOsmondsFireweedFoundation
Summary: The year is 1905. A russian immigrant and his nephew have arrived at a port on the French coast to board a ship destined for England. He has no name but the one he has given himself.What's in a name, he wonders? Quite a lot, according to his astute Finnish travelling companion. And he should know, after all - he chose three for himself alone!
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Крещение (Christening)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry I've been away for months! I originally wrote this back in August 2019- it's a prequel to a WW1 AU I've had in mind for the Oshun Oxtra crew, which would in turn lead to a WWII AU for the children.
> 
> Let me know it you like it, and I'll try to write more of it!

“Name?”

“ _Dov_.”

“I’ll need a full name, Sir.”

The enormous man rumbled, although he was more tired than irritated. He had left his birth name beneath the smoldering rubble of a life abandoned a thousand miles to the East. Choosing a new moniker for himself, without the aid of friends or family who knew him, could guide him as to what best suited him and to laugh at all the inappropriate suggestion, well. Deciding upon a single word had been draining enough.

“ _Dov Ber_.” There. That would do.

“Right.” The officer wrote ‘Dov’ under the column titled ‘Christian name’ and ‘Ber’ under ‘Surname’. “And the little lad?”

It took a moment for him to realize that he was indicating to the little creature clinging to his leg, half-hidden by his oversized scarf. He peered up with huge eyes.

“Ah.” He ruffled the child’s hair with evident affection. “ _Myshka_.”

“Myshka Ber, yes?”

He grunted in the affirmative. It wasn’t the boy’s birth name either, but he used the nickname almost exclusively these days, so he supposed it made no odds.

“Right. Take your bags and move along, sir.”

Holding the boy close, he hefted a worn duffel bag over his shoulder and trudged to join the queue of people leading up to the gangplank. A light mizzle had started to fall; the boy shivered, so he threw the flap of his overcoat around him.

“ _Uncle_ ,” he whispered in Russian, “ _how long will we be on the boat?_ ”

“ _I’m not sure, little mouse. A while, I think._ ”

“Excuse me.”

He looked up. The person addressing him stood directly in front of them. He was a short man, stoutly built, with pale skin burnt red by sun and wind. Although he must have been younger than him, he had about him the air of someone who had already seen a lot of the world, and indeed intended to see more of it. His brown eyes jumped about with a curious cleverness.

“I could not help but overhear,” his accented danced, lilting and light, “but your name, _Dov Ber_ … Well, my handle on the Russian language is not quite what it is on some others, but does that not translate to ‘Bear Bear’?”

He surprised himself with a low, earthy chuckle.

“ _Da_ , ah- yes.”

“Well.” The stranger looked him up and down (there was rather a lot of him to look at). “I think it suits you quite well.”

He laughed, despite himself. “Yes! Yes, is true. Is true. Very, uhh…” He had no idea how to say ‘observant’ in English, or even to tell him that it was a very kind thing to say to a complete stranger on a crowded dock. “Nice.” That wasn’t right, but it would have to do. “Nice of you, Mister uh…”

“De Moomin.” The man held out his hand, which he shook. “Nicholas Johannes Taavetti de Moomin.”

“Huh. Is…” He sifted through his limited vocabulary, somewhat overwhelmed. “Many name.”

“They are,” admitted de Moomin. “I couldn’t decide on just one that I liked, so I chose several. And I made up the surname entirely.”

“You… make up?”

“Yes. I didn’t like the one they gave me back at the, ah… _barnhem_ … orphanage! That’s it, the orphanage.” He looked up to see his audience looking lost. “Oh, well, I’m an orphan – so, no parents.”

“Ah, yes, yes. No parents – сирота.”

“ _Sir-sirota?_ Yes? Yes. Well, I was given a name, and I didn’t like it. So I chose a new one.”

“Ah. Yes. Me also.”

“Oh. Did you also not like the name you were given?”

“No, is not… no.” He was grateful at the moment that he didn’t have the words to explain the circumstances that had brought him here with only his nephew and a book of poetry for company.

“Ah, I see,” de Moomin said kindly. “Well, as it is what you have chosen for yourself, then it is what I shall call you, Mr Bear.”

There was an awkward pause, broken when de Moomin looked down and smiled. “Hello,” he said to the face that peeped out from the folds of the overcoat. “Or здравствуйте, I should say.”

The child smiled shyly and hid his face against his uncle’s shirt.

“Your son?”

“No.”

“Oh. Ah. So he’s…”

“Brother’s child.”

“Ah! So he’s your nephew.”

“Nephew, _da_. Yes.”

A splinter of pain threatened to worm its way between his ribs, so, in Russian, he said, “ _say hello to Mr de Moomin, little mouse._ ”

The child looked up with one eye.

“Привет.”

De Moomin chuckled.

“Hello, _Myshka_.”

The man though that perhaps de Moomin would drift away once they were on board the boat, but he stayed, chatting to him, taking time every now and again to scribble down new words of Russian vocabulary in a little leather bound book.

“ _Dov Ber_ is a good name,” de Moomin said conversationally, “but it is rather like two first names stuck together. We would do well to choose you a surname.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Are there any Russian surnames you might like?”

“Hmm.” The only one he could think of was his own. Exhausted, he grunted, “you choose.”

“I- oh. Me? You’re sure?”

“Mmh.”

“But names are important, Dov Ber, and I only just known you…”

“Name is name. You chose.”

“Ah. Hmm. ‘Smith’, maybe? No, you’d never pass for an Englishman.” He cast back to his own language. “’ _Korhonen?_ No, you’d not pass for a Finn either.” De Moomin hummed and tapped his chin with his pen. “Oh! _Frederiksson_. I had a teacher called _Fru Frederiksson_. She was nice. How about that?”

He looked at his companion expectantly, who just shrugged.

“Frederiksson. Is nice.”

“Good,” said de Moomin. “Dov Ber Frederiksson it is then.”

He used this new name often, as if to sound it out for him; hearing it out aloud made it feel real somehow, in a way that it hadn’t beforehand. A tired Jewish immigrant with no name and no past stepped aboard that ship. Dov Ber Frederiksson alighted on the other side.

He hoped he would one day find the words to thank de Moomin for that.

**Author's Note:**

> Hodgkins is Dov Ber Frederiksson  
> Muddler is Myshka  
> Moominpappa, I suspect fairly obviously, is Nicholas Johannes Taavetti de Moomin
> 
> [ poetry/writing tumblr](https://kay-osmonds-fireweed-foundation.tumblr.com/)   
>  [poetry instagram](https://www.instagram.com/fireweedfoundation/)


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